


Orange with Purple Stripes

by a_little_chai



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Gen, Help me God I've tried to post this three times, Loss of Innocence, Short One Shot, Socks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_little_chai/pseuds/a_little_chai
Summary: Spencer Reid always wore different colored socks. Always. Like many other things, Tobias|Charles|Raphael took this away from him. Hotch wonders how they're going to get through this.Tag to post-Revelations
Comments: 6
Kudos: 157





	Orange with Purple Stripes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, this is just another short thing I wrote late at night. I hope you enjoy reading this!
> 
> (there are no warnings for this story)

The first crime scene tech to enter the small cabin took two steps in, before he turned a - frankly remarkable - shade of green and ran back outside into the crisp February air to retch up his dinner. That man may have been a newbie, but anyone would have been lying if they said their stomach didn't churn when they were inside that place. 

It was the _smell._

A horrifying mix of rotting meat, sweat, urine, and burning fish. The smell of it all, horribly human and wild and _wrong_ , permeated the very air that hung stagnant within the four walls. The team, those that had stayed behind, couldn't help the tears that invaded their eyes when they walked in. 

This was real. 

It had been so easy to write it off as some fever dream (nightmare, really; a twisted nightmare) fueled by lack of sleep and a shit ton of stress, but everything about this place just seemed agonizingly raw. 

There was the chair, wooden and rickety, where their colleague (friend, brother, son) was beaten and tortured and killed. The restraints that had held his wrists dotted in blood. A line of computer screens, darkened, formed a row along the back wall. And the stove, where burning fish hearts and innards laid, was still burning strong. 

Aaron Hotchner. Emily Prentiss. Derek Morgan. The ones who had stayed behind. The rest of the team was at the hospital, with Reid. They had stayed, to secure the scene. To catalogue evidence and gather details in order to flush out reports. 

This... what they were seeing could not be written down in any official document. The pain and loneliness and torture that had occurred within these walls could not be quantified. It was more than any man - woman - child, should ever have to go through, much less one as kind and selfless as SSA Dr. Spencer Reid. 

Hotch hid behind the shield he so carefully kept up, tucking his emotions deep within himself because he was scared, terrified, of what he would do if they were to go unchecked. Emily shoved her feelings into a box, carefully labeled. One that would not be opened until this was done and they were out of this damned state and back home, safe and recovering. Morgan, well -

Morgan punched the wall. 

Hard. 

He _couldn't_ do what Hotch and Emily were doing. He couldn't keep his emotions checked in and act like some fucking robot while they were standing in the room that his _brother_ was beaten, ripped apart, and murdered before his eyes. No, he couldn't do that. So he walked away. Out of the house, past the crime tech who was still sick on the front porch. _Spencer_ needed him, not this crime scene. They could do this without him. 

Hotch didn't say a word to stop him. 

Instead, he looked around through painfully clear eyes, any rose colored lenses having been long tossed aside. He saw the broken, unfinished headstone laying on the floor, saw the bucket of water that must've been drawn from a well out back. Saw the rotting carcass of some animal sitting in the corner, whitish-green mold steadily covering the red flesh. And he didn't think of Spencer. Didn't let himself imagine the kind kid that loved to read and learn. The boy who had been given a badge and gun and told 'figure it out' without anyone to guide him. 

He saw the nameless, faceless victim of a serial killer of dissociative identity disorder. Name didn't matter. 

Until he saw the sock.

It was laying in the dirt and grunge of a corner, covered up so he could hardly see its colors. Orange-yellow, with thin purple stripes (the colors of night and fall and _Spencer_ , all disjointed and clashing but somehow good). He'd seen the one bare foot, the bruising and the limping that screamed 'broken,' but this was different. 

Maybe it was the smells that had made this real. But the sock... the sock made this so... _bare_. Naked in a way so no one could deny an evil happened here. An innocence was taken. 

And that innocence was Spencer's. 

That meant name most certainly did matter. 

Because Spencer never wore the same two socks together. Never. He'd seen the go-bag full of single folded pieces of fabric, all different. Bright colors against the darks of his pants and shirts. Maybe the job had forced his clothing to be subdued, altered, but his socks had always been _his._

A part of Spencer nothing could've touched. 

And yet, there was the orange sock, tossed like garbage into the dirt and he knew then that he couldn't do this, he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't, he needed to but the sock, that sock - he couldn't, he couldn't, he - 

He whipped around, ignoring Emily's questions and followed the same path Morgan had taken. Down the steps, past the tech, past the shovel and the body being bagged and the shallow indentation where a grave was going to be. Past the extra ambulance and the SUVs and police cars parked on the road ahead. Past everyone until he was sitting next to Morgan in the driver's seat of their car, staring out the front window. 

"Is he going to... will he be able to get through this, Hotch?" The voice was deep, almost gruff with emotion and held-back tears. 

He looked down at his hands, worn from the callouses of guns and phones held for years. Hands that had first condemned men to prison, then killed them. "He's tougher than we give him credit for."

"He... he's still just a kid."

Just a kid. A lanky, awkward kid who had just killed someone. 

"We'll be there for him. We'll support him."

"Is that enough?" _No_. "Can we get him through this in one piece?" 

"I don't know, Morgan. I don't know."

And he didn't, he really didn't. Could someone so innocent, so trusting and kind and real as Spencer truly recover from having everything, his job, his morals, his life, be this shaken up? He didn't know the answer. 

And that terrified him more than anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reason! If you enjoyed, leave a kudo or comment behind!
> 
> **~You are loved, and never alone. We are here for you, and you are enough.~**  
> 


End file.
